Studio: The Asylum
Director: Jose Prendes
Writer: Jose Prendes
Producer: David Michael Latt
Stars: Michael Madsen, Ethan Daniel Corbett, Emma Reinagel, Erik Celso Mann, Adam Slemon, Michelle Bauer
Review Score:
Summary:
Dr. Frankenstein's mad plan to build a new creature brings together the most iconic monsters of all time, including Dracula, the Invisible Man, the Mummy, and the Wolf Man.
Review:
When you think of one-in-a-million chances, you probably think about winning the lottery. My one-in-a-million chance was developing cataracts in my twenties, roughly fifty years before most senior citizens usually get them. They were removed, but in the time since, I've collected a cadre of eye floaters that like to drift dots across my field of view. That's a common side effect I've grown accustomed to, except a few weeks back I suddenly saw a bigger cloud that was so worrisome, I had to visit an eye doctor for fear I was losing my eyesight. The good news is, contrary to my characteristic pessimism, I'm not going blind (yet). The bad news is I now have "an annoying new friend for life," as the doctor put it, that briefly blurs my vision every time my right eye moves horizontally.
As you can imagine, diminished vision and potential blindness have subsequently occupied a majority of my thoughts recently. They were even at the front of my mind during "Monster Mash." As I sat there with this poor man's potpourri of public domain monsters doing their B-movie best to recreate a vintage Universal monster rally on a pocket lint budget, I couldn't help but contemplate, "I might have a limited amount of decent sight left in my life, and who knows when my next ocular affliction might be a detached retina or macular degeneration. So why in the Hell am I spending even a second of that valuable vision on watching Michael Madsen in guyliner morph into a CGI puddle to battle bargain bin versions of classic creatures on a stage the size of my bathroom?"
One hour into the runtime, "Monster Mash" pauses for a "Fright Break." During this gimmicky intermission, scrolling text boldly predicts, "Your heart may not be able to stand the shocking conclusion of this film," so you're granted an opportunity to stop watching before things supposedly get too intense. The irony of saying, "You're a brave audience to have lasted this long, and we won't hold it against you if you decide to leave before it is too late," is this warning could have come only one minute in and it still would have been accurate.
In "Monster Mash," Michael Madsen plays Dr. Victor Frankenstein. Known for his Tarantino tough guys as much as paycheck parts in DTV vapor, Michael Madsen is about as appropriately cast as Dr. Frankenstein as Don Knotts would have been for Don Corleone. Are Lance Henriksen and Malcolm McDowell actually turning down these roles now?
Dr. Frankenstein is dying. As part of his plan to build a new body, he needs to collect pieces and parts from the world's greatest monsters, like Dracula's blood, a mummy's heart, the Invisible Man's skin, and the Wolf Man's limbs, which can apparently regenerate now. Madsen, I mean Dr. Frankenstein, can't be bothered to leave his laboratory though, so he sends his original creature, named Boris, to do the dirty work for him. This creates a connect-the-dots line where each iconic character gets collected until all of the avengers assemble for a five-minute faceoff where they duel in darkness amidst intermittent flashes of digital lightning and other Full Moon Features-grade FX.
To rope this review back into my introduction, I intended to quip that maybe being blind wouldn't be so horrible, since then "Monster Mash" would only be able to offend my sense of sound, not sight. The joke is on me though, because "Monster Mash" isn't bad enough for that to be true. A tripod keeps the camera steady. Sets are lit with actual electrical equipment, not available light sources. Shots also appear appropriately blocked as opposed to grabbing footage with run-and-gun carelessness. And although they're not fantastic, monster makeups are on par with work that was acceptable on syndicated TV like "Psi-Factor" and "Poltergeist: The Legacy."
Don't misunderstand. "Monster Mash" is still a movie whose stiff dialogue and cut-rate production value keep it ready-made for RiffTrax. It's just that whenever The Asylum logo appears at the start of a film, your standards hit the floor so hard, they fall unconscious. At least, they should. Once they're flattened down there, or if your better sense falls unconscious too, their movies become watchable, occasionally even entertaining in an "I'd better get stoned before muscling through the remaining hour of this" manner.
Obviously, if you measure an Asylum flick against a multimillion-dollar Hollywood blockbuster, that's a lopsided seesaw where "Monster Mash" will be launched into the air as a total eyesore. On the other hand, if you put it up against an average Amityville indie shot on a cellphone with Kermit-colored greenhorns who've never acted before, "Monster Mash" almost looks like "Gone with the Wind."
Let's split the difference and use a ruler with only Asylum shark movies as markings, for no particular reason. On a scale of "Shark Side of the Moon" (review here) to "Sharknado" (review here), and I'm not 100% sure which end is the ten and which should be the one, "Monster Mash" probably lands close to "Mega Shark versus Crocosaurus." I have no idea what that means either, I never even saw that one, so let's just say it's somewhere in the middle on any Asylum-specific metric.
Review Score: 50
It is moderately compelling in the moment, but it has a hard time holding up to even cursory scrutiny as far as believable “found footage” concepts go.